Arizona guard Caleb Love was a Final Four hero in 2022, led North Carolina in scoring last season and is doing the same this season for the Wildcats.
But he had never picked up a Player of the Week award from either the Atlantic Coast Conference or the Pac-12 until Monday, when he was given the Pac-12 weekly honor after averaging 19.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.0 assists in the Wildcats’ home weekend sweep of Colorado and Utah.
Love shot 59.3% over the two games while making 4 of 12 3-pointers and dishing six assists — including passes to Pelle Larsson and Oumar Ballo against Utah for baskets that made each a 1,000-point college scorer.
Against Colorado, Love also played a role in keeping the Buffs’ leading scorer, K.J. Simpson, to just 5-of-17 shooting with eight turnovers. Against Utah, Love scored 23 points on 9-for-15 shooting, surpassing the 20-point mark for the fourth time in UA’s past five games.
“He’s an electric player,” Utah coach Craig Smith said. “There’s not much he can’t do on the basketball floor ... I mean, that dude is a playmaking guard.”
One of Love’s highlights against Utah came when UA went on a 12-0 run early in the first half to take off from a 47-45 lead. During that run, Love chased a loose ball into the backcourt with Utah’s Gabe Madsen, managed to grab it, then stormed inside past Madsen for a dunk that made it 54-45.
The dunk represented the first two of 15 points Love scored in less than six minutes during the middle of the second half, with Arizona leading 71-54 with 9:20 left when his scoring spree ended.
“Caleb, as we know, he can get hot,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said. “He got on a heater for a minute, and I just told him, 'Hey, take a breath. You got us a little separation. Now let us bring it home.’ Twenty-three is good enough. I told him, 'I’ll take 15 and great defense,’ and he’s really grown in that area. He’s a game-changer.”
This season, Arizona transfer guard Caleb Love is averaging 17.7 points a game while shooting 44.4% from the field overall and 32.3% from 3-point range.
For the season, Love is averaging 17.7 points a game while shooting 44.4% from the field overall and 32.3% from 3-point range.
While Love’s 3-point shooting hasn’t jumped significantly from the 29.9% mark that drew heat at North Carolina last season, he has repeatedly come through in the clutch and scored in bunches when needed while Arizona has built a 12-3 record.
In UA’s 78-73 win against Duke in its second game of the season, Love nailed a 35-footer just before the halftime buzzer and then returned to hit all four free throws he took in the final 17.4 seconds to help clinch the game for the Wildcats.
On Nov. 23 against Michigan State, Love played all but 22 seconds of the second half while helping hold off the Spartans’ push after halftime, grabbing a steal and then passing to freshman KJ Lewis for a dunk that sealed the game.
Lately, Love has been a volume scorer, collecting 22 or more points in four of the Wildcats’ past five games. He had 22 at Cal on Dec. 29 and 23 at Stanford to become only the second UA player after Deandre Ayton to score 20-plus points in his first two Pac-12 road games.
Love had 16 points while playing just 25 minutes in UA’s route of Colorado last Thursday, and then, in UA’s 92-73 win over Utah on Saturday, Love helped UA pull away after leading by just a point early in the second half.
“Caleb is a great player,” Ballo said after the Utah game. “He’s a guy who can do a lot of things — scoring, playing defense, passing. And for him to have the team on his back for a little stretch, that helped us. He’s a guy that you can rely on (to) get the job done.”
Over the previous three seasons at North Carolina, Love was a two-time honorable mention all-ACC pick and twice won the conference’s “Rookie of the Week” award as a freshman in 2020-21 – but never the league’s Player of the Week honors.
The Pac-12 on Monday also named USC guard Isaiah Collier its Freshman of the Week after he averaged 19.5 points, 2.0 rebounds and 5.5 assists in the Trojans' home sweep of Cal and Stanford.
For the Player of the Week award, Love beat out a competitive field of nominees that included Cal's Jayson Tyson, ASU’s Jose Perez and USC’s Kobe Johnson.
Tyson averaged 22.5 points and 6.5 rebounds in the Bears' loss at USC and win at UCLA. Perez averaged 17.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.5 assists while playing a key defensive role in the Sun Devils' home wins over Utah and Colorado. Johnson averaged 17.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists in the Trojans' wins over Cal and Stanford.
Restful week
While the Wildcats must make their final Pac-12 (and maybe ever) trek to Pullman, Washington, this weekend, they will first get to enjoy their longest break between games since after they played Michigan State on Thanksgiving.
Arizona won’t be traveling to Seattle to play Washington this season because of the Pac-12’s unbalanced 20-game schedule, giving them only one game this week. While the one-off, non-rival Pac-12 games have been previously played in early December, all conference games were scheduled after Christmas this season because of how the basketball calendar broke.
The Wildcats took Sunday off and are expected to take at least one other day off this week. They’ll have only one other one-game week the rest of the season, the week of Feb. 12, before they host ASU on Saturday, Feb. 17.
“We do need a little rest,” Lloyd said. “We've been on a gauntlet. Christmas ended up not being a rest for us. We have not had a break. We played a really tough schedule right into the road in the Pac-12. think it caught up to us a little bit against a good Stanford team.
“Coming back home was great. But we need a week where we can just take a breath, have a couple of days off, and really focus on ourselves.”
Arizona players had only about 72 hours off for Christmas, having lost to Florida Atlantic on Dec. 23 and opening Pac-12 play at Cal on Dec. 29. They then lost 100-82 at Stanford on Dec. 31.
Lloyd said he was excited to get back to work this week and that “being a great defensive team” is top on his agenda. The Wildcats held Colorado to just 36.4% shooting and Utah to 41.2% but let three of their five opponents before that shoot 50% or better.
Day game set for UCLA
ESPN may not announce the exact game time for Arizona’s Jan. 20 home game with UCLA until the network settles its NFL playoff windows, but it won’t be a night game.
The UA-UCLA game will be played at either noon or 2 p.m. and will be carried on ESPN or ESPN2.
Wildcats move to No. 8
Arizona moved up two spots to No. 8 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll after beating Colorado and Utah at McKale Center last weekend.
The Wildcats (12-3 overall, 3-1 in Pac-12) are ranked No. 3 in both Kenpom and the NET. The Wildcats are 5-2 in Quad 1 games though their loss at Stanford qualifies now as a Quad 2 loss.
No other Pac-12 teams are ranked. Among other UA opponents this season, Purdue remained No. 1, Duke rose from No. 14 to No. 11, FAU dropped from No. 17 to No. 24 and Wisconsin moved up from No. 21 to No. 15.
Veesaar redshirt likely
Lloyd said on his radio show Monday that sophomore Henri Veesaar is "pretty much a full-go" now to practice but that his situation is leaning toward sitting out all season as a redshirt.
Veesaar suffered an unspecified right elbow injury in a golf cart mishap in October and has not played in any regular-season games. Because he has not, Veesaar can either keep sitting out and automatically receive a redshirt, or he can play anytime if needed.
While Veesaar fell out of UA's playing rotation last season, he had been expected to compete for a role in the frontcourt this season. He averaged 2.4 points and 1.5 rebounds while playing in 29 of UA's 35 games.
